#I was thinking about some specific artists when I brought up the stuck to one style thing: both seem to be in college and yet they draw

[heyhay13]

Lightning Round QnA!

We had over 250 questions in the form and we focused on ones that were very open to anyone in the cast. So specific detail questions got left out :(

Here's a lightning round of questions to answer for y'all and my ask box is open if you have more!

Rae/Heyhay Questions

What happened to Icarus's birds?? We know Rae said he'd take care of them, but with the birds being wacked and Icarus whole memory type thing, what would happen with that.

Sherb and I talked about this a bit and landed on the birds seeking out Rae and he builds an aviary for the strange new little friends following him around. I might even write a fic for it!

Heyhay how long did the scrapbook (shown at the end) take to be made?

I worked on it for nearly a month and a half between organizing with the artists and making it myself!

How did you come up with Vaeh's Name?

It's from Fenris' sister Nevaeh!

Will you continue to cosplay the characters after this?

Absolutely!

To Rae/Hayhay: what was your favorite memory to make in the Always Remember Book?

I think probably all of the wedding details. I loved talking with my friends to plan out the details and outfits SO MUCH and a lot of the poses are based on my own wedding photos!

Are there any plot lines that you wish you could have done or explored more in depth, but couldn't due to time?

We initially had some ideas for finding a few more Telchin temples, including Project Protetus. I really like building the temple/facilities so that would have been fun!!

How did lore planning/pre stream work?

We usually plan out rough ideas for a stream in dms and then meet 30 minutes before a stream to go over everything, dry run some things like flight paths, and do sound checks!

Out of all the characters on fable smp, which one do you think you could win in a fight against?

Ven lol

Will we see other versions of the fable characters in other smp's like Bound?

You might >:3

If your character didn’t ascend, what would they be the god of? And if they did ascend, were there any other domains they could have been the god of other than the domain they got?

Rae's took FOREVER to actually land on. I was really stuck on wanting something that felt more correct than Knowledge and we tossed around a lot of ideas until landing on Wonder.

How much of the relationship constellation was planned?

Literally only Raax and Ocie's original partners (Rust, Jerry, Shawn) were planned! The others came about naturally as the lore progressed.

Did Rae ever get better at baking/cooking?

YES! At least slightly-

How old is Rae in the time period that Rye made in Rae’s epilogue

Not an exact age for Rae, but his epilogue takes place when Vaeh is roughly 4-5 years old.

The first two seasons have “names” (endstone reset and skulk reset) but what would be season three’s?

I like to think it'd be called the "Last Reset"

What is your favourite kind of fanfictions written about your character? (Tropes/themes/etc)

I'm a massive sucker for Hurt/Comfort fics-

Clarification Questions

What was that one gold aura building near the temple of creation in S1?

It was a build from Sherb's hardcore world at that time!

Why did Rae remember Icarus? I thought everyone was supposed to forget but I might’ve misunderstood

Rae remembers Icarus as a child up until when Icarus' first death would have been! Isla would also remember Icarusa as a child as well.

Was the release me book from season one written by fable?

Yes!

What is Haley? She came back from the dead but no body ever said if Midas made her come back or if she was a god.

Midas brought her back, switching her and Fable's places so he would go back into Purgatory

Why couldn’t Haley see quixis’ changes from purgatory?(and fable)

There is no record of Quixis in the Akashic Records. This is also why Icarus is missing from the records in Rae's epilogue!

General Questions

Are you guys gonna do another smp where its everyone as the same cast?

Nope, not with this exact cast at this time, but we all are on a bunch of other smps you can check out! Mer, Bound, Siege, and more!

Is there a reason behind all of the seeds you use in Minecraft? Or is it just the first biome that pops up is the new setting for the season?

We actually look really hard for a good world seed that we like. For season 3, we really wanted a good spot that the tree could be near the ocean and this seed worked out great for that!

Will we be able to have a world file of S3?

YES - it's coming soon!

[pinkeoni]

The “Will Has Powers” Basics Post

I’ve realized recently that whenever I talk about Will having powers, I kind of just expect everyone to be on the same page as me, without really explaining much of what lead me to believe he has powers in the first place. I don't really have a good foundation to point to.

So that's what I want this post to be, not really too detailed but more of an introductory post. I'll explain the basics of my Will has powers theories, why I believe he has powers, and what kinds of powers I think he has. I'll be using evidence I've used in a lot of other posts while also keeping it simplistic and not trying to add anything too speculative or theoretical.

Evidence & Powers #1) Nancy's Dialogue and Time and Light Powers

I think one of the easiest pieces of evidence and my usual go-to is Nancy's dialogue in 4x07 when the teens are in the Upside Down. Nancy remarks that the Upside Down is stuck on the day that Will went missing, and then brings Will up again in regards to the lights. Both of her pieces of dialogue here implicates Will as the one who froze time and got the lights to work the way they do.

"The last entry is November 6, 1983. The day Will went missing. The day the gate opened."

"Will found a way. Will. He found a way to speak to Joyce through the lights."

(So I used to think it was "The day the gate opened. The day Will went missing." and not "The day Will went missing. The day the gate opened." but after rewatching the scene it is actually the former. My bad.)

Now obviously Nancy wouldn't know that Will is responsible nor do I think she has some kind of psychic intuition, but the writers would know and are writing her dialogue in a specific way that points toward Will in both instances. Bringing him up by name not one, not two but three times places emphasis on him specifically. I think that El opening the gate had a part in this, but if it was her solely then I think Nancy's dialogue would read as "The last entry is November 6, 1983. The day El opened the gate." rather than trying to tie Will into it in the first place. Moreover, the gates that Vecna is opening with El's powers don't seem to be updating the Upside Down to modern times, Will is an important piece of the puzzle.

The light thing is something that I do think is solely Will, given that gate opening isn't brought up and Nancy brings Will up by name twice in the same line of dialogue.

The word "found" here is also interesting because it could have two meanings.

A) Will stumbled upon the lights ability

B) Will created the ability to communicate with lights

Had Nancy said "Will stumbled upon a way to talk to Joyce through the lights" it would suggest that the lights is a rule from the UD that has always been there. Nancy saying that Will created the ability to talk through lights wouldn't make sense for her to say because Nancy wouldn't have access to that information. "Found" is the perfect balance between the two— it makes sense given Nancy's access to information while allowing enough room to imply that Will had something to do with it.

Evidence & Powers #2) Will as an Artist and Creation Powers

If you created a tv character who had magic powers, but you couldn't reveal it until the final season, how do you pull it off without it feeling out of nowhere? How do you build up the reveal without completely giving it away.

Well, I would do it by attributing his powers with aspects of the character that has already been built up and that the audience has become familiar with.

It's established that Will is an artist from season one, and his art continues to be important to the plot it nearly every season.

In season one, Joyce is able to correctly identify that El is not because Will's drawings are much more advanced than El's stick figures.

In season two, Will uses drawings in order to help visualize his now memories and creates a map of the tunnels.

Not much in season three, but Will does use charcoal in one scene to demonstrate visually how the shadow particles work.

In season four, Will creates a painting for Mike that becomes an important moment in the season and sets in motion important events for the future (aka byler endgame)

I will admit that this piece of evidence by itself is not enough to convince an audience that Will has a supernatural link. Will is an artist -> Will has powers is a pretty far stretch. But I think that this combined with some of my other evidence could support what kind of powers I think he has, which I think is some from of creation ability. Will has powers because of xyz -> Will is also an artist -> Will has powers of creation is a better argument and what I'm trying to get at.

Without getting into all of the chunky theoretics here, I believe it's possible that Will may have the ability to create whole lifeforms and vast worlds, such as the Upside Down itself and the creatures inside.

Evidence & Powers #3) Will the Wise, Fire Powers & Prophetic Abilities

This goes along similarly with what I said about using Will's artistry to foreshadow his powers, or using another facet of Will's character to hint at powers without giving it away altogether. Although, I would say that this piece of evidence is probably a lot more obvious than the previous bullet.

"Will the Wise" is Will's Dungeon's & Dragons name, which comes up pretty frequently in the show. Will the Wise is confusingly labeled as both a wizard and a cleric, although both classes are magic-users within DnD.

Each member of the party has a DnD class and character, although Will's is the one that get's brought up the most. The name Will the Wise is referenced—

Episode one when Will is playing DnD

In a flashback later in season one

The episode title "Will the Wise" from season two

And in season three when we have our most obvious piece of powers foreshadowing, when Will dresses up in a Wizard costume

During this same scene, Will says that he has "seen into the future" which is why I suggest that he may have prophetic abilities. Vecna displays a similar ability when he shows Nancy the future in her vision.

It's also possible that Will may have some kind of fire abilities, based on one of Will the Wise's attacks being "fireball." (@reikunrei made a really great post recently proposing that Will's fire powers might extend to some of his other abilities rather than being purely a fire attack, but alas I cannot find it ((I am so sorry Wilbur)))

Evidence #4) Continued Connection With Vecna

Another reason why I suspect that Will may have powers comes from a series of questions:

Why is Will the first one taken to the Upside Down?

Why choose Will as the host of the Mind Flayer?

Why continue to have a connection with Will?

I think I could write-off the first two as incidental if the show didn't make it a point to continue this connection through seasons three and four, that along with Nancy's dialogue in season 4 discussed earlier. Could Will's disappearance have been a coincidence? Sure. Could Vecna have just needed Will to be a spy, and is completely disposable to him? It's possible. But if so, what is the narrative reasoning for maintaining this connection? Is it to just for the convenience of having Will as a beast sensor?

Something else that tips me off about Will's disappearance is the why it happens as well, which we aren't really told. We are told with Barb that the demogorgon is attracted to blood. Nancy and Jonathan later use this tactic to lure it to the house.

And yet with Will, we don't see any blood. In fact, they make a point to emphasize this when Hopper tells Joyce that there was no blood on his bike.

Evidence #5) Will's focus in season 5

Despite Will always being my favorite character and loving him so dearly, I didn't start seriously theorizing until I saw this tweet by Discussing Film, which came out shortly after vol. 2 was released.

I know that outside cast and crew comment shouldn’t be taken as gospel, as they have lied before for the sake of spoilers. Which is why I put this at the end, and why it’s not my only piece of evidence.

But still, it’s not like every comment is a lie, and even then, wouldn’t this be a wierd thing to lie about? And kinda cruel? Imagine saying “Oh, this gay character who hasn’t gotten a lot of screentime is going to be a focus.” only to say “Haha just kidding, he’s actually unimportant!” So I’m inclined to believe that they’re telling the truth.

So if this statement is true, then how could Will not have powers? How would you make a character the center of a show about the supernatural, if he has no tie to the supernatural at all?

[0pawprint0]

All the autographs I got! The only person on my list I didn’t get was Matthew. His lines were long throughout the whole con. But I got a picture with him and he complimented my Shaggy cosplay, so I still consider it a win! He was super kind.

The Hazbin gang were all so sweet and talking to them was so much fun! They all seemed to love my Sir Pentious cosplay! Erika even asked for a pic to show Alex. He didn’t respond while I was there, but he’s a very busy person, so I get it completely ^^

I nearly cried when I got to meet Rob. I have looked up to him for so long and it was so amazing to finally meet him. He was as wonderful as you’d expect. It was super hard to choose which poster for him to sign because he plays so many characters I love. I ended up picking Donnie because TMNT 2012 is my favorite version and I never see anything for it. I was telling him about how even some of his super specific roles like Eric from The Little Mermaid 2 have stuck with me and he gave me a hug! He also addressed me in Donnie’s voice and knew how to spell my name without me even needing to tell him! Most people don’t spell it right. He also complimented my cosplay and asked me how to make it and everything (I was Sir Pentious that day). It was such a good time. I would talk with him all day if I could. I unfortunately didn’t get a picture with him because I didn’t have enough money (things tend to go wrong when I’m trying to save money and I had to pay to fix some things the month before fhfhfhdn). But I’m hoping to see him again one day and next time I will get a picture!

Grey was so fun to talk to! She actually had her hair put up with a pin to look like Azula (Avatar: The Last Airbender), another character she plays. She excitedly addressed me as Shaggy (the cosplay I was wearing that day), telling my sister and I to "throw Scooby Snacks at any monsters you see!" and told us not to unmask anyone :’) she’s so silly and fun I love herrr! She gave us a hug, too! Frank was super nice and loved the poster my sister brought for him to sign (she got it from an artist at the con) and he even did Scooby’s voice to us!

My sister is a big fan of Cameron Monaghan, so we went to his panel. She was able to get a pic and autograph with him, too! I don’t have the pictures with her because I don’t think she’d want me to post her face here lol.

I didn’t get an autograph from him because of money, but I also got to meet Johnny Yong Bosch! He’s most known for Ichigo from Bleach, but what I was excited for was talking to him about Danganronpa (he is Hajime and Rantaro)!

This is my haul I got from comic con (excluding the things that came with my ticket). I did, indeed, come home with 4 Miku figures. But one was free! Because at that booth it was buy 2, get 1 free.

I also got a Neighthan Rot doll for fairly cheap (they go as high as $70 online). Tbh a Monster High doll is the last thing I expected to get at a con, but I’m pretty down with it lol. Especially because it’s in great condition and still had his journal!

For the Harry Potter sticker and pin, we got those for free at a free Harry Potter trivia we went to because HP is my sister’s favorite book series. She also won a book she doesn’t have! It was like a Dumbledore side story (note: neither of us support or like Rowling as a person. She did not get any money out of us, as this was free).

The mushroom sticker was given to me by an artist as I passed their table! Their info is there on the sticker if you’re interested in their work!

The stickerssss! They make me so happy. There was so many more this artist had that I wanted, but I didn’t have the money for it, unfortunately. I got Ciel, Sebastian, Grell, and Undertaker (Black Butler), Bill, Stan, Wendy, Dipper, Mabel, and Waddles (Gravity Falls - they didn’t have Soos or Ford rip), Craig and Tweek (South Park), Sir Pentious (Hazbin Hotel), Stolas (Helluva Boss), Rampo (Bungou Stray Dogs), and Amaimon (Blue Exorcist).

This stuff came with my ticket! I LOVE the poster!

I didn’t get these, but I thought they were really funny.

Post 2/2

[toanw]

i remember first stumbling upon u in the fancure wiki n' saw memoria precure ... needless to say i was MESMERIZED by those designs (up to seeing how much they've improved now alongside ur other cures) n' i jus wanted to know if u had any tips on how you design your characters ??? they're all soso clever

Ahhhhhh thank you so much!!! yeaaa lol prior to this all my stuff has been on the wikis only :,) very out of date too, but im happy when people recognise my fanseries regardless!!

i mentioned in a previous ask that i like to abstract objects and reuse their shapes as design elements, and i think thats my best advice for really getting across a motif in a character design! This is really helpful for cure outfits specifically, because i find theres a limit to how many plain frills and bows you can use before a magical girl looks generic, LOL

shape language is like 80% of character design, even when aiming for more realistic character designs. whenever im designing a character i try to think about how everything down their features convey their personality—from eye shape to hairstyle—and i try to think about outfits in terms of texture/fabric. silhouettes are also really important!! i pick specific pieces of clothing, for example, based on what i associate their silhouette with (this can be as rudimentary as round shapes indicating friendliness, or as specific as a dress shape evoking a specific era of fashion/art).

keeping on silhouettes, i like to keep “statement pieces” to a minimum. In my cure designs i try to pick and choose which elements i exaggerate so that they still feel grounded—to use some of the memoria designs as an example, spring’s focal point is her twintails, levin’s is his scarf, and grave’s is her hat and skirt. everything else on their designs is slightly scaled back so that those are the parts that (hopefully, if i did my job right) stand out, and ive chosen other elements that work with the silhouette of those focal points instead of against them.

In the aforementioned ask i brought up pokemon trainer designs as a really great example of abstracting motifs to create character designs, and i think thats a great place to start when learning!! theyre so simple but (particularly with the type specialists) can get across a theme so well with that limited detail through their shape language. Other places i look for inspiration are gijinka artists (rinotuna is one of my favourites) because you can actually see a direct line between the original image/object and a character design based on it. Very interesting stuff!

i have a very long running list of artists whose character designs inspire me, and i suggest making a list like this of your own! it has really helped when i feel stuck :)

[dawnfelagund]

How to Block AI Bots from Scraping Your Website

The Silmarillion Writers' Guild just recently opened its draft AI policy for comment, and one thing people wanted was for us, if possible, to block AI bots from scraping the SWG website. Twelve hours ago, I had no idea if it was possible! But I spent a few hours today researching the subject, and the SWG site is now much more locked down against AI bots than it was this time yesterday.

I know I am not the only person with a website or blog or portfolio online that doesn't want their content being used to train AI. So I thought I'd put together what I learned today in hopes that it might help others.

First, two important points:

I am not an IT professional. I am a middle-school humanities teacher with degrees in psychology, teaching, and humanities. I'm self-taught where building and maintaining websites is concerned. In other words, I'm not an expert but simply passing on what I learned during my research today.

On that note, I can't help with troubleshooting on your own site or project. I wouldn't even have been able to do everything here on my own for the SWG, but thankfully my co-admin Russandol has much more tech knowledge than me and picked up where I got lost.

Step 1: Block AI Bots Using Robots.txt

If you don't even know what this is, start here:

About /robots.txt

How to write and submit a robots.txt file

If you know how to find (or create) the robots.txt file for your website, you're going to add the following lines of code to the file. (Source: DataDome, How ChatGPT & OpenAI Might Use Your Content, Now & in the Future)

User-agent: CCBot Disallow: /

AND

User-agent: ChatGPT-User Disallow: /

Step Two: Add HTTPS Headers/Meta Tags

Unfortunately, not all bots respond to robots.txt. Img2dataset is one that recently gained some notoriety when a site owner posted in its issue queue after the bot brought his site down, asking that the bot be opt-in or at least respect robots.txt. He received a rather rude reply from the img2dataset developer. It's covered in Vice's An AI Scraping Tool Is Overwhelming Websites with Traffic.

Img2dataset requires a header tag to keep it away. (Not surprisingly, this is often a more complicated task than updating a robots.txt file. I don't think that's accidental. This is where I got stuck today in working on my Drupal site.) The header tags are "noai" and "noimageai." These function like the more familiar "noindex" and "nofollow" meta tags. When Russa and I were researching this today, we did not find a lot of information on "noai" or "noimageai," so I suspect they are very new. We used the procedure for adding "noindex" or "nofollow" and swapped in "noai" and "noimageai," and it worked for us.

Header meta tags are the same strategy DeviantArt is using to allow artists to opt out of AI scraping; artist Aimee Cozza has more in What Is DeviantArt's New "noai" and "noimageai" Meta Tag and How to Install It. Aimee's blog also has directions for how to use this strategy on WordPress, SquareSpace, Weebly, and Wix sites.

In my research today, I discovered that some webhosts provide tools for adding this code to your header through a form on the site. Check your host's knowledge base to see if you have that option.

You can also use .htaccess or add the tag directly into the HTML in the <head> section. .htaccess makes sense if you want to use the "noai" and "noimageai" tag across your entire site. The HTML solution makes sense if you want to exclude AI crawlers from specific pages.

Here are some resources on how to do this for "noindex" and "nofollow"; just swap in "noai" and "noimageai":

HubSpot, Using Noindex, Nofollow HTML Metatags: How to Tell Google Not to Index a Page in Search (very comprehensive and covers both the .htaccess and HTML solutions)

Google Search Documentation, Block Search Indexing with noindex (both .htaccess and HTML)

AngryStudio, Add noindex and nofollow to Whole Website Using htaccess

Perficient, How to Implement a NoIndex Tag (HTML)

Finally, all of this is contingent on web scrapers following the rules and etiquette of the web. As we know, many do not. Sprinkled amid the many articles I read today on blocking AI scrapers were articles on how to override blocks when scraping the web.

This will also, I suspect, be something of a game of whack-a-mole. As the img2dataset case illustrates, the previous etiquette around robots.txt was ignored in favor of a more complicated opt-out, one that many site owners either won't be aware of or won't have time/skill to implement. I would not be surprised, as the "noai" and "noimageai" tags gain traction, to see bots demanding that site owners jump through a new, different, higher, and possibly fiery hoop in order to protect the content on their sites from AI scraping. These folks serve to make a lot of money off this, which doesn't inspire me with confidence that withholding our work from their grubby hands will be an endeavor that they make easy for us.

[erenmusic]

A very short Playlist with a lot to say, some Favorites I listened to in the last 5 years.

My idea for this playlist was a compilation of songs I was listening to religiously at different points in my life. Since I don't remember every song I was really into and I only have specific dates to go from on Spotify, I decided to go with the last 5 years. to say it all again this playlist is songs I personally found out about or really got into in the last 5 years listed chronologically. so lets get into it!

The first song I wanted to go with is Dishes by Jeff Rosenstock.

I was having a hard time picking a song to start from but I ended up with what really got me into indie and just different types of music other than stuff. This whole album 'I Look Like Shit' is just so personal to the artist and unashamed about being sad and admitting all his Problems and just feeling like shit, all his worries (See his other album Worry which is a lot more popular and acclaimed than this one.) and regrets, it just goes on and on. Now that I listen to the album less often, I have less of a connection to it and I feel better in general, so the songs do not hit me as hard anymore. However, that doesn't mean that I will ever forget about this album and what it did for me in bad times, The actual Song Dishes I picked because I was listening to this guitar solo that starts around the 2-minute mark that was just stuck in my head for months. I couldn't recommend the album enough, but you definitely have to go into it with a certain knowledge that it will not censor itself and is extremely personal.

The second Song is Passing Complexion by Big Black off of their Album Atomizer.

This song and band in general got me really into Noisy music and just sounds that are very unorthodox, using pedals and distortion, using electric cables to make these insane ringing sounds not just on this song but the whole album. It's a different sound from the album they made after this, which I am sure you have seen the album cover for, I really prefer the harshness and sound of this song and album even though I enjoy the album right after this one for different reasons, no other song they made got caught in my head as much as this one did. It is a sound like no other and I was listening to this song just replaying it as soon as it ended so many times I can't even count it. For the Third song, I went with Translyvania Boogie by Frank Zappa off of the album Chunga's Revenge, which is also the first record I ever bought.

I was really into Frank Zappa by this point, especially his album Apostrophe which I just love to death and which I also have a record of now but didn't have at that point. The reason I picked this album and song is that I was walking in Kadikoy in Turkey and I was walking through the record stores and I found this album for extremely cheap. I had never bought a record before because of the absurd prices people put on popular records over there, but this one was not in the best condition and the guy said the price was 135 Liras (which was like 8 dollars at the time) so I couldn't not take the bargain for an album I loved so much.

The moment I brought it home and put it on, the first song Transylvania Boogie had me hooked even more than before. The guitar work and just booming instrumental that this song is was made even better because I would play the record in my living room all day and we had an awesome sound system there that connected to a record player. I don't have a player now so all my records are kind of just sitting around or left back in Turkey. A day will come I'll actually get to use them again. The Fourth song I picked is When You Sleep by My Bloody Valentine off of their album "loveless".

Oh man, this song and album. I don't think I was more obsessed with a certain sound ever in my life. I had already gotten into unconventional music and just the spaciness, vocal distortion and instrumentals on this album are some sounds that you just don't get anywhere else and I loved it the moment I listened to the album. even other Shoegaze bands and MBV's previous work, just nothing comes close to what they achieved on this album. the main reason I picked this specific song is because of the absurd amount of times I listened to it in 2021.

the song really fits any possible way you are feeling, this is also the reason I could listen to it on average once a day for a year. I would put it on when I was sad, happy, energetic, down, scared, feeling accomplished, just wanting a fun song. It genuinely fits to exactly how you feel, it could be a song about breaking up and missing the other side, it could be about yearning, it could be about how much you love someone, and it could just be an insane instrumental that just rattles your head clean off and you have an experience every time you listen to it. Love this song to death. (very hard to pick a favorite off of this album so I just went with the classic undeniable great song on there, Sometimes and Soon were also big contenders.) My Fifth pick is very specific version of Box of Rain by the Grateful Dead. Live at Portland Memorial Collesium in 73.

I have always listened to the Dead all throughout my life, especially the Road Trips CD's and Dick's Picks CD collection my Father had but this compilation I had never heard before. my brother was a lot more into the dead than I was so he would show me these great live shows that I would never have found otherwise. So while listening to one of them that he reccomended, Box of Rain, one of my favorites and probably the best Phil Lesh song came on. I already love most of the versions and especially the studio version on American Beauty. However, this version I have up here I was listening to religiously especially the part I have clipped up in the video. The piano merges with the vocals and guitar work perfectly and it is honestly just unexplainable how much it brings me down to earth, I feel great whenever I listen to this song, and man I was just playing this every time I did a Dead Run where I listen to a bunch of songs from them. and these days I still listen to it whenever I am on a long walk, it just fits. My Sixth pick is, Positively 4th Street by Bob Dylan.

I couldn't keep myself from putting Bob Dylan on here. this song I was listening to almost every day for months last year. The Lyrics are just heartbreaking and he doesn't stop at all throughout the song, no chorus, no bridge, he is relentless and just keeps telling the other side off. The amount of emotion Bob can bring out of me is very overwhelming sometimes. It is also important to say how well this song met the situation I was in, it really came at the right time. After a breakup trying to not have contempt for the other side, still being in love, but also saying fuck off, you treated me as if you'd rather see me paralyzed. Trying to make myself believe that they are not at fault and that they didn't mean how they came across, but still feeling horrible because I just couldn't believe that they didn't understand how bad what had been done was. "I wished that for just one time, you could stand in my shoes. and for just that moment I could be you. yes, I wished that for just one time, you could stand in my shoes, You'd know what a drag it is to see you." This song would just get me going, and get me thinking about how I need to move on. It really helped me at the time, and even though I know Bob Dylan writes breakup songs in such a way that you think he's in the wrong, this song makes me feel for whatever Bob was going through and it helped me see clearly what situation I was in. I will always keep it in my back pocket for a rainy day. And for the Final song I decided to go with is a song I have been really into recently. I'm On Fire, by Nas on his album King's Disease III.

My roommate is really into Nas and he got me to listen to a lot of his albums, I had been steadily listening to Rap music for years but I hadn't really gotten into Nas and the 90's New York scene as much as I wanted to. I had listened to Illmatic and It was Written by him but I hadn't really gone farther than that. Thanks to his recommendations I really have a larger catalog of rap music that I would be willing to show people. This song specifically he had actually shown me last semester however I forgot to add it to any of my playlists. so when I found it again and played it, man. The beat, the sample, the way he flows on this song, and just the fact that This joint came out last year is so crazy to me. Nas fell off for a bit in the middle of his career but the comeback he made with this album is awesome to see. Love this song and I will listen to it until I get sick of it, which might take a looong time. So to sum up, these are all songs that correspond to important times and events in my life and I get a wave of memories thrown at me every time I play them again. I would say every song on here is a 10/10 for me, but that is obviously is very subjective and I can see why people would think, huh really? this song? Also, I have to point out that I had a really hard time picking these songs out of every song I have ever listened to, so I might just do more of these playlists, listing out some great songs every now and then. Stay tuned! there are definitely more songs I can list and that I want to show to people, but this is just a little peek into some classics and very personal picks I enjoy.

[virgoingfaraway]

Homesick

The other day I heard this Noah Kahan song for the first time. I love his music but I've never sat down and listened to an album of his from start to finish. I have a tendency of doing that with the most beautiful of artists. It stems from some deep-seated fear, I guess. I don't know. I couldn't fully articulate it if I tried. But anyway, I heard the lyric, "and I will die in the house I grew up in..." for the very first time and I wasn't fully focused on the song because I was vibing and driving but that one line was like a punch to the gut. I immediately started weaving this web in my head. It just really brought me back to all the times when I was younger and I'd think to myself, "I want to go home. I want to go home. I want to go home." All the while fully knowing that my own home didn't actually feel like the safest of spaces, but wishing that it did, and wishing I could just exist vulnerably and outside of survival mode. But I existed in my body. My whole life was in my mind, it seemed; and my mind has not always been the kindest of places... so to me these lyrics specifically parallel the very nuanced reality of being stuck with yourself and the fantasy of the kind of love and support some of us have only dreamed about. Am I homesick because these walls of mine do not feel like a home or am I homesick because I have never felt peace within myself? Suffice it to say my mind will die within this body- even if this body does not die within these walls.

[studentofetherium]

quarter for your thoughts

if a penny is worth one thought, then 25 thoughts...

just finished watching Shinjuku Boys, and i think it was a really interesting film. i think it's cool to see a film focusing on trans men, when a lot of historic queer films tend to focus on trans women, and i also always love films that focus on a specific niche subculture, in this case, trans men working at a host club

i've been getting back into regularly watching film this year, and it's been so fun. i really, really love film, and particularly over the last few weeks, ive been trying to explore films from countries i don't usually watch films from. Korea and China are the two ive been thinking about, but also Australia, and once i get through all that ive set aside for that, i keep this up, tho i'll decide where next later

purple is a really nice color, y'know?

my music taste last year was the most singular and consistent it's been since 2018, since i was listening to a lot of postrock and emo, particularly The World is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die, but this year i haven't really been stuck on any one genre or artist all that much, except maybe Owl City

i miss having air conditioning, but having an excuse to spend more time outside (where it's generally cooler than inside) has been nice

i need to read more. I have the Prose Edda and Understanding Media sitting on my desk, plus Ougimonogatari and Ikusamonogatari on my phone, and i wanna finish those before starting anything new

Svefn-g-englar is one of the most gorgeous songs i have ever heard

i keep thinking that i want to get back into keeping up with chika idol music, but there's just so much, and i haven't really followed it for a few years now, and i'm not listening to much current music these days anyway, so i keep putting it off

despite all the posts i'm making about Koyodachi, my takeaway from Ikusamonogatari is that Koyomi and Hitagi are truly perfect for each other. the whole relationship is so sweet, and it's great to see them have come so far together. the "18 years" motif is a little heavy-handed, but i think it's a great throwback to the origin of the series

i'm still not over how surreal it is to see covid brought up directly in a Monogatari novel, considering they all take place in the same general timeframe and ive been following these books since before the pandemic

i should reread Juuni Taisen. it's been a while

i'm coming to realize that i much prefer to write stories for my ocs than to come up with details to include in a planning document. it's just easier for me to create a character when i'm putting words in their mouth and thrusting them into situations, because that way i can get an idea of how i feel about them as a character. i'm also more of a storyteller than a write (meaningless distinction), so i naturally find it easier to tell stories

ive been pushing myself to watch more films this year, but ive also been trying to push myself to read more, and i'm hoping to finish some of the stuff that's been sitting on my bookshelf for years, unread

similarly, and back to movies, there's a lot of stuff ive bought and local video stores that i haven't watched, because i do most of my watching on the computer, and i really should start watching that stuff more

Caligula Effect is a fascinating game and i cannot wait until it's cool enough in my room that i can play more, because it sounds like it only gets better from here

as i keep practicing Japanese, every now and then i think that i should try to read something in Japanese, but it always goes poorly and puts me off from trying it again... but it's been a while and i'm thinking that i should maybe try it again. something simple, but still, something

having self-confidence is so cool. i play up my pride a bit because i think it's funny, but i genuinely think it's really important to take pride in oneself and what one does because that's a really easy step towards a better mental health. thinking of myself not only as a good writer, but a great one has done wonders for me

i keep a sticky note on the wall behind my computer monitor with all the numpad codes for special characters that i use most often. my most used ones are —, Æ, and á

i haven't stopped thinking about the quote "can you really say a song is your favorite if you've only heard it once". it hasn't even been a year, but that has definitely led me to rethink the way i look at art, and in particular value returning to things i love more highly. my most recent Monogatari rewatch in particular has been an effect of that

having a girlfriend is so cool

i wish TJPW shows weren't all 3-4 hours long, because that makes it a slog to catch up

hey nuriel we don't talk much but you're a cool friend

i really should just commit to learning to draw. actually looking up tutorials, actually practicing with regularity, etc. all my efforts in the past have been half-hearted, but i really should commit myself to it one of these days

i'm so excited to rewatch Adolescence of Utena in a couple days, even more than i'm excited to rewatch the ending of the tv show

i'm still trying to find a new hyperfixation! nothing has really landed, but i was getting into a couple new things (Ruina and Caligula) plus was about to commit to finishing some other stuff, but then the ac broke and that's totally thrown me off any sort of schedule, so i have to wait for that to be fixed before i can really get back into any of it

there we go :) 25 thoughts

[bubblesandgutz]

Every Record I Own - Day 770: Lungfish Sound In Time

The first time I heard about Can was reading an interview with Lungfish frontman Daniel Higgs in some zine back in the late '90s or early '00s. I don't remember anything else from the interview, just Higgs saying "the guys in the band have been listening to a lot of this old German group called Can." That was it. I don't know why it stuck in my head; I wasn't even a Lungfish fan at the time. But learning about new music (or old music, for that matter) back then meant reading zines, and I made a mental note to keep an eye out for this Can band.

It would be years before I'd actually hear Can. And strangely enough, I fell for Can before I fell for Lungfish. I don't even think I remembered that Higgs interview until listening to "You Doo Right" off Can's Monster Movie LP while walking around Brooklyn and thinking "damn, this could be a Lungfish song." By that time, I'd already owned Monster Movie for several years and was building up my Lungfish collection, but as is often the case with both bands, sometimes you hear a song a half dozen times before it suddenly comes to life and sinks into your soul. And on that afternoon where I was walking across Greenpoint to my rehearsal space with "You Doo Right" on my headphones, I made the connection between the two bands and remembered when krautrock first popped on my radar.

There are scattered moments across the first few Lungfish records where you could potentially hear some of krautrock's penchant for hypnotic patterns, but it really isn't until Sound In Time where the band really went for cyclical songwriting. Every song on the album adheres to one or two riffs repeated over the span of four or five minutes. As if to reinforce the cyclical vibe, the album begins and ends with the same instrumental passage---"Constellations" and "Constellations Pt. 2." Like Malcom Mooney, Higgs comes across like a man possessed, or perhaps a man in the throes of an acid trip, spitting out feverish cosmic mantras. Drummer Mitchell Feldstein might lack some of the jazz-trained finesse of Jaki Liebezeit, but he adheres to the same principle of finding a solid drum beat and sticking with it for the duration of the song. Similarly, Asa Osbourne borrows little from Can guitarist Michael Karoli other than a general aversion to pentatonic blues riffing, but there is a complete and utter absence of showboating that falls in line with Can's ego-less jams (though the backwards tracked guitars on "Jonah" are reminiscent of Neu!'s "Hallogallo," if we really wanna reinforce the krautrock comparisons). And as far as bassists go, it may be a stretch to peg new Lungfish bassist Sean Meadows as the band's Holger Czukay, but considering that his addition to the band brought them into a more transcendental era of songwriting and Czukay's own behind-the-scenes importance in shaping the classic era of Can, perhaps the parallel is deserved.

Can was all about spontaneity and jamming, whereas Lungfish feels very deliberate and structured. But Can edited their improvisations into something that felt patterned, and Lungfish leaned into structure until it began to feel malleable and alive. Both yielded a kind of otherworldly power tethered to droning melodies, steady rhythms, and idiosyncratic frontmen. With Sound In Time, Lungfish progressed beyond the trappings of the Dischord brand of post-hardcore into a sound that was distinctly their own. And like Can, they became one of those nearly peerless reference points for a specific sound. Lots of artists try to sound like Can. Lots of artists try to sound like Lungfish. And while you can hear their influence everywhere, ultimately, there is only one Can, and only one Lungfish.

[atlanticcanada]

Tony Bennett, masterful stylist of American musical standards, dies at 96

Tony Bennett, the eminent and timeless stylist whose devotion to classic American songs and knack for creating new standards such as "I Left My Heart In San Francisco" graced a decadeslong career that brought him admirers from Frank Sinatra to Lady Gaga, died Friday. He was 96, just two weeks short of his birthday.

Publicist Sylvia Weiner confirmed Bennett's death to The Associated Press, saying he died in his hometown of New York. There was no specific cause, but Bennett had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2016.

The last of the great saloon singers of the mid-20th century, Bennett often said his lifelong ambition was to create "a hit catalog rather than hit records." He released more than 70 albums, bringing him 19 competitive Grammys -- all but two after he reached his 60s -- and enjoyed deep and lasting affection from fans and fellow artists.

Bennett didn't tell his own story when performing; he let the music speak instead -- the Gershwins and Cole Porter, Irving Berlin and Jerome Kern. Unlike his friend and mentor Sinatra, he would interpret a song rather than embody it. If his singing and public life lacked the high drama of Sinatra's, Bennett appealed with an easy, courtly manner and an uncommonly rich and durable voice -- "A tenor who sings like a baritone," he called himself -- that made him a master of caressing a ballad or brightening an up-tempo number.

"I enjoy entertaining the audience, making them forget their problems," he told The Associated Press in 2006. "I think people ... are touched if they hear something that's sincere and honest and maybe has a little sense of humor. ... I just like to make people feel good when I perform."

Bennett was praised often by his peers, but never more meaningfully than by what Sinatra said in a 1965 Life magazine interview: "For my money, Tony Bennett is the best singer in the business. He excites me when I watch him. He moves me. He's the singer who gets across what the composer has in mind, and probably a little more."

He not only survived the rise of rock music but endured so long and so well that he gained new fans and collaborators, some young enough to be his grandchildren. In 2014, at age 88, Bennett broke his own record as the oldest living performer with a No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart for "Cheek to Cheek," his duets project with Lady Gaga. Three years earlier, he topped the charts with "Duets II," featuring such contemporary stars as Gaga, Carrie Underwood and Amy Winehouse, in her last studio recording. His rapport with Winehouse was captured in the Oscar-nominated documentary "Amy," which showed Bennett patiently encouraging the insecure young singer through a performance of "Body and Soul."

His final album, the 2021 release "Love for Sale," featured duets with Lady Gaga on the title track, "Night and Day" and other Porter songs.

For Bennett, one of the few performers to move easily between pop and jazz, such collaborations were part of his crusade to expose new audiences to what he called the Great American Songbook.

"No country has given the world such great music," Bennett said in a 2015 interview with Downbeat Magazine. "Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Jerome Kern. Those songs will never die."

Ironically, his most famous contribution came through two unknowns, George Cory and Douglass Cross, who in the early '60s provided Bennett with his signature song at a time his career was in a lull. They gave Bennett's musical director, pianist Ralph Sharon, some sheet music that he stuck in a dresser drawer and forgot about until he was packing for a tour that included a stop in San Francisco.

"Ralph saw some sheet music in his shirt drawer ... and on top of the pile was a song called `I Left My Heart In San Francisco.' Ralph thought it would be good material for San Francisco," Bennett said. "We were rehearsing and the bartender in the club in Little Rock, Arkansas, said, `If you record that song, I'm going to be the first to buy it."'

Released in 1962 as the B-side of the single "Once Upon a Time," the reflective ballad became a grassroots phenomenon staying on the charts for more than two years and earning Bennett his first two Grammys, including record of the year.

By his early 40s, he was seemingly out of fashion. But after turning 60, an age when even the most popular artists often settle for just pleasing their older fans, Bennett and his son and manager, Danny, found creative ways to market the singer to the MTV Generation. He made guest appearances on "Late Night with David Letterman" and became a celebrity guest artist on "The Simpsons." He wore a black T-shirt and sunglasses as a presenter with the Red Hot Chili Peppers at the 1993 MTV Music Video Awards, and his own video of "Steppin' Out With My Baby" from his Grammy-winning Fred Astaire tribute album ended up on MTV's hip "Buzz Bin."

That led to an offer in 1994 to do an episode of "MTV Unplugged" with special guests Elvis Costello and k.d. lang. The evening's performance resulted in the album, "Tony Bennett: MTV Unplugged," which won two Grammys, including album of the year.

Bennett would win Grammys for his tributes to female vocalists ("Here's to the Ladies"), Billie Holiday ("Tony Bennett on Holiday"), and Duke Ellington ("Bennett Sings Ellington -- Hot & Cool"). He also won Grammys for his collaborations with other singers: "Playin' With My Friends -- Bennett Sings the Blues," and his Louis Armstrong tribute, "A Wonderful World" with lang, the first full album he had ever recorded with another singer. He celebrated his 80th birthday with "Duets: An American Classic," featuring Barbra Streisand, Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder among others.

"They're all giants in the industry, and all of a sudden they're saying to me `You're the master,"' Bennett told the AP in 2006.

Long associated with San Francisco, Bennett would note that his true home was Astoria, the working-class community in the New York City borough of Queens, where he grew up during the Great Depression. The singer chose his old neighborhood as the site for the "Fame"-style public high school, the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts, that he and his third wife, Susan Crow Benedetto, a former teacher, helped found in 2001.

The school is not far from the birthplace of the man who was once Anthony Dominick Benedetto. His father was an Italian immigrant who inspired his love of singing, but he died when Anthony was 10. Bennett credited his mother, Anna, with teaching him a valuable lesson as he watched her working at home, supporting her three children as a seamstress doing piecework after his father died.

"We were very impoverished," Bennett said in a 2016 AP interview. "I saw her working and every once in a while she'd take a dress and throw it over her shoulder and she'd say, `Don't have me work on a bad dress. I'll only work on good dresses."'

He studied commercial art in high school, but had to drop out to help support his family. The teenager got a job as a copy boy for the AP, performed as a singing waiter and competed in amateur shows. A combat infantryman during World War II, he served as a librarian for the Armed Forces Network after the war and sang with an army big band in occupied Germany. His earliest recording is a 1946 air check from Armed Forces Radio of the blues "St. James Infirmary."

--------

AP National Writer Hillel Italie contributed to this story.

from CTV News - Atlantic https://ift.tt/FJuIcVf

[givemewallywestorgivemedeath]

Welcome to me making unhinged theories about Rottmnt Part 2: Electric Boogaloo

So do you guys remember that episode where Draxum just casually says "Hey, lets use this neat mystic artifact to transport you into your father's mind, it's called the Sands of Time Hourglass, no biggie."

This man walked in with the TMNT equivalent of an Infinity Stone and just never brought it up again. Absolutely wild behavior.

Anyway, there is in fact a point to this, as I would like to suggest that the Sands of Time Hourglass is actually the hourglass from the top of the Scepter of the Sands of Time, aka the Time Scepter.

A totally farfetched and insane theory, I know. But if we want to make this leap in logic, we then have to ask: "Hey what the fuck? Why does Draxum have half of one of, if not the, most powerful weapons in TMNT lore???"

And guys. I don't have an answer to that. Did he steal it from the time lord, Lord Simultaneous? Possibly! I'm not sure! I just know that Draxum has a HIGHLY COVETED AND FOUGHT OVER ITEM CAPABLE OF TIME TRAVEL AND REALITY WARPING. So, uh, narratively this is kind of a massive deal.

But to get back on topic, do we, by chance, happen to know of a female teenaged mutant ninja turtle who became friends with a Time Lord, got stuck in an alternate dimension learning to time travel for years, and then stole the time scepter?

Super specific but yes, actually!

Enter Lita!

Lita is an albino turtle, her favorite color is pink and she's peak little sister vibes! Lita spent the first part of her teenage years in the null dimension training to be a time lord. She double crossed the timelords and stole the SUPER POWERFUL TIME SCEPTER to stop an apocalyptic future. She's also Leo's adopted daughter in the main timeline but the older time traveling version of Lita (with the cool markings) is more like Leo's little sister.

And at this point you're going to start to notice some similarities between Lita's plotline in the comics and Casey Junior's plotline in the movie.

And at this point I'm going to point out something absolutely RADICAL. The null dimension does not experience time, nor do changes to the timeline affect those in the null dimension. Aka, the Rise version of Lita saw Casey Junior's timeline.

Hell, I'll even go so far as to say that Lita helped Mikey send Casey Junior back in time. Crazy? Maybe, but less so when you notice that Mikey starts the scene in future with no stickers and it's only after Leo asks Mikey to make a portal that Mikey is shown with a singular pink sticker that (oddly enough) matches Lita's tattoos.

I would be willing to bet that lil teenaged timelord Lita popped in, paused time, gave Mikey some extra juice and a sticker, and then popped back out before she got caught meddling.

Anyway, I'm not really sure what the deal with Lita is in Rise, but I'm willing to bet that Draxum lost her trying to get the Scepter, Lita saw the Kraang timeline and decided to stick around the null dimension to subtly mess with time and give her family the win (possibly was even behind the Shredder/teapot victory???), Mei left because Draxum lost her little sister in a mad grab for power and now Lita is... 'a little bit kooky' because she's been in the null dimension for too long and has seen too many timelines.

Also this is a picture of a baby albino painted turtle:

Because I think it'd be super cute if Leo had a tiny baby sister that had opposite markings (aka yellow stripes on her face and red/pink stripes on her body)

(I do also think they would give her a female artist name as an alias)

Anyway, that's it. Those are my Rise theories.

Alright guys, it's that time again. It's time for me to make completely unhinged in-depth theories on cartoon shows based on comic lore.

Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Edition!

If you are unfamiliar with this series then congrats! You get to listen to the, hopefully entertaining, ramblings of a mad man.

But! If you, like me, binge watched this series and are now left with a burning hole in your chest wondering when season three will come out then congrats! You also get to listen to the ramblings of a mad man, this time with slightly more context!!!

One of the burning questions everyone was left with in the wake of Rottmnt and the movie was "who are the other two turtles?" See, Rise from its very inception had always intended on introducing two more turtle siblings to Raph, Leo, Donnie and Mikey's family dynamics. This inclusion can be seen as early as season one when there are six turtle pods shown on screen during the boy's origin story.

We, in fact, actually see one of the missing sisters in season 2 of the show. The character dubbed 'Big Mama's Assistant' is confirmed by the show runners to be a secret sibling and, if they had been given a season three, they would have revealed this at the end of season 2. Season three would then have been focused on the Hamato clan retrieving the missing sisters.

But who is Big Mama's Assistant? Is she Venus De Milo, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle sister from the live action show? Is she Jennika, the turtle in yellow from the comics? Well I've got news folks. She's neither.

Tweets from the show runners confirm that Big Mama's Assistant was never intended to be Jennika or Venus, she was instead going to be an original character.... or was she?

Guys, gals and nonbinary pals, I submit to the court that Big Mama's Assistant is in fact an original character that is both an adaptation of Jennika and Venus.

First, let us establish some facts.

In the above images I would like you to acknowledge several things.

this sibling is in the height range of Donnie/Leo (as can be seen when compared to Big Mama's height).

this sibling has a thin shell, one that is barely noticeable under her clothes.

this sibling has a gigantic forehead.

this sibling wears a mask that shows markings that start at the eyes and wrap around the head.

this sibling's weapon of choice is neko-te.

Finally, this sibling seems to have two small fake turtle shells strapped to shoulder as shoulder pads.

So I raise the question: Who do we know that has a thin, barely visible shell, gigantic forehead, is approximately Donnie's height and wears prosthetic turtle shells? Donnie.

Yeah, folks I'm pretty sure this sibling is a softshell. She's wearing her own version of her 'battleshell' from her turtle tot days as shoulder pads. Actually, I'm pretty sure we see her green battleshell here:

And do you know what a Smooth Softshell Turtle looks like?

It's the same face markings. And it's yellow. Objectively, they have to use yellow for one of the two sisters because they gave April green in Rise.

"Alright," I hear you saying. "So you think she's a softshell, but what does that have to do with who she is??"

What a perfect segway question! Thank you so much for asking. Did you guys know that Venus' name isn't actually Venus? Venus is the alias that she uses to fight crime/be a ninja with her brothers/fit their art theme. Venus' actual name is Mei Pieh Chi which translates to Beautiful Softshell Turtle Energy.

So it is actually ENTIRELY possible for Big Mama's softshell turtle assistant to be an adaptation of Mei Pieh Chi without being named Venus. If she simply picks a different alias then we're all good. (I'm assuming the creators liked 'Frida' because Smooth Softshell Turtles look like they have intense eyebrows)

Alright, so we've established how Venus fits into this (aka Venus doesn't, Mei Pieh Chi does) but what about Jennika!? Well that one is actually super easy. Yeah, so remember how the mystery sibling uses neko-te?

Yeah, uh, Jennika's main weapon is a neko-te/tekkō-kagi mash up. (Aka Wolverine claws) I'm assuming she would use magic neko-te until she eventually unlocked her ninpō and got the wolverine upgrade (mirroring how the boys switched weapons) I'm also assuming that she would inherit Jennika's color (yellow), Jennika's sexuality (lesbian) and it's confirmed that she would inherit Jennika's personality (see below).

(also I'mma call it right now, she's autistic and I love her. She's Very Very Serious ™ aka she takes everything literally)

And now let's take a look at what I call "The reason Big Mama and Draxum already knew and hated each other, got into an argument about stealing stuff from each other and the reason why Draxum waited 13 years to do the whole mosquito backup plan":

"No, it would’ve been sweet, right? Like, at the end we see, like, maybe Draxum’s bodyguard takes off their mask and, you know, reveals a female sibling, and then there was, like, another one 'cause we thought it’d be great to investigate, ‘Okay, like, Splinter was able to save four out of six and maybe we just didn’t see the other two and, like, what would that be if they were raised by Draxum and Big Mama?’ And this would be something Draxum would admit to them at the end of season two." - Executive Producer, Andy Suriano

Guys, Draxum in season one is a divorced dad who lost custody. He went with the backup plan after THIRTEEN YEARS because his kid said "Fuck you, I'm living at Mom's house!" Draxum threw Leo off of a roof because the goatman had PTSD from his daughter rejecting him and nOW SUDDENLY THERE'S FOUR NEW KIDS THAT HATE HIM?!

Also, let's circle back to the other sister being "a little kooky from being trapped in another dimension for years." You know what'd be traumatic enough to abandon your parent and completely reject them? If they got your sister stuck in another dimension with no way out. You know what'd be a super good reason for Draxum not telling the boys about their sisters? If he LOST ONE.

But where oh where did this lost sister go and who is she? Well, I've got more on that but you'll have to wait for part two because I am out of pictures!

Thanks for being unhinged with me and see ya next time folks!

[shihalyfie]

Hi! recently I read your post about differences you had spotted in the japanese fandom and you mentioned how some people said that tamers wasn't female audience friendly. I don't know if you know why?

(Also I love your blog btw)

Thank you so much! I hope I didn't give the wrong idea (I can't find the specific post but I'm hoping I didn't word it wrong) but it was just one comment I saw that made me think about it a lot; I don't think this is necessarily an opinion beyond just that person, it's just that when I saw it it really stuck out to me and made me really spend time pondering why someone would think that way.

To be more specific, the situation was that an Adventure fan who'd gotten back into it and 02 because of Kizuna brought up Tamers and said they were interested in it, and the commenter said that it was a good series (they were still recommending it, they weren't trying to dissuade!) but warned that it was "more obviously oriented towards a male audience" than the Adventure series (the exact word was 一層男向け).

So I think some specific context about this incident also helps to explain further; it's rather significant that it was said to be potentially less female audience friendly than Adventure-branded works, which were used as a comparison point because the explanation was originally for someone who had never seen anything else besides that. In this case, I think it's less so that Tamers is that female audience-unfriendly as much as the Adventure series is actually considered to be surprisingly female audience friendly for a shounen series of its kind; of course, it still is ultimately made and marketed more for young boys, but it ended up infamously getting a much larger female audience than you'd have expected. The girls having their feelings fleshed out in detail and not constantly having a red arrow on them as The Girls™ of the Group (I think you know what I mean by this) -- something really not very common in shounen anime from 1999-2001 (even now it's not that common) -- made them very relatable to the female audience. And on top of that, you had things like Yamato or Ken infamously being a lot of girls' first love.

And then, well, let's put it this way: it is generally understood that most adult anime fans who made gay fan comics and fanart at the time were female, and so naturally Taichi/Yamato and Takeru/Daisuke got very popular among this crowd. Note the reason why it's Takeru/Daisuke in particular: Ken didn't join the group as an ally or even have a particularly deep interaction with Daisuke (other than episode 8) until halfway into the series, but by that time there were already people enthusiastically churning out gay fanwork with Daisuke and Takeru before anything significant in the series had happened because they were ready for them to be the next Taichi and Yamato. (Obviously, you know how the series actually went, but hindsight is 20/20.) So you had doujinshi artists making and selling gay comics at events, and magazines like Animage and Animedia (generally considered to have a high female reader population) were flooded with subtext-filled gay fanart submissions.

Even now, you can see the subtle acknowledgment that they know Adventure has a ton of adult female fans, given tri. stuff being in the female audience-oriented magazine Otomedia, as well as the tri. stage play even existing at all. (Anime tie-in stage plays are very associated with female audiences, and in fact the actors for the Digimon one even pointed out they had an unusually gender-neutral audience compared to what they were used to.)

So when you look at Tamers in comparison, it's not that it's necessarily giving a cold middle finger to its female audience as much as it's clearly got a lot fewer of the above factors and is more concerned about appealing to the main target of boys, hence the description "more obviously oriented towards a male audience". For instance, fundamentally speaking, Ruki was made to be a "strong" character because they wanted her to appeal to boys (presumably to include ones that wouldn't like "girly-girls"). Now, the good thing is that Ruki ended up becoming important representation for girls who also felt similarly out of place with being pigeonholed as "girls", and I'm not saying Adventure and 02 couldn't have also used some of that too, but keep in mind that the entire development of Ruki's state of mind in this respect has been credited to female writer Yoshimura Genki. I think it's very possible that, in the hands of a different writer, Ruki could have easily fallen into the trap of what I call the "Strong Female Character" Fallacy, which is when you make a female character who's good at violently beating things up but is portrayed more like an object to be cool and hot for the boys than she is a human being because they don't actually bother to pay any respect to her own feelings. (Unfortunately very common with male-oriented works.)

I'm getting off-track here, but my point is that while Adventure and 02 were fundamentally made for boys first, they did have a lot of elements that easily appealed to the female audience and seem to have been outright conscious of the female periphery demographic, perhaps unusually so for shounen anime at the time, whereas Tamers was much less conscious of that and focused more on elements that boys would like, such as plotlines about strength and less on more sentimental things (and there probably really could be something to be said about that kind of attitude's relationship with toxic masculinity, but I don't think we're ready for that conversation, nor do I think the final product went so far in that direction it has nothing sentimental going for it at all or anything).

That said, I can't emphasize enough that this was ultimately one fan's opinion on the Internet, and the reason I ended up resonating with it a bit is that I did at least notice that Adventure and 02 do seem to have a much higher ratio of female fans than Tamers does and thought it would be worth considering why (in fact, even Frontier has come off to me as having a larger ratio of female fans than I've noticed with Tamers). While this might be a bit provocative of a thing to say, I also do get the impression that most of my bad experiences with a certain type of Tamers fan that gets super condescending about its superiority over every other series also does seem to have a suspicious amount of overlap with a certain kind of toxic dudebro fan. However, and I'll put this in bold because it's important, I do not personally believe Tamers being more oriented towards a male audience inherently makes it unfriendly to a female audience. There are a lot of female Tamers fans, including people who are likely reading this post, and ones who found deep connection and meaning with many of the elements in Tamers, and in fact it's a fallacy to conclude that a girl or boy would necessarily like or dislike something (that would be exactly the kind of sentiment that Ruki was trying so hard to work against, after all). Digimon is a shounen series, but at the time Adventure through Frontier originally aired, they aired on the same day as magical girl anime Ojamajo Doremi, so there were a lot of girls (and boys!) who would watch both. Female audience-oriented, male audience-oriented, that's all subjective, and in fact it probably only really matters when it comes to toy sales and capitalism, but that ship's sailed a long time ago. And meanwhile, here I am, as a female fan who likes Tamers myself, so it certainly hasn't turned me off!

[becomingbts]

Time heals (sometimes) - 1

Summary: 6 years ago, (Y/N) thought that she was finally taking her life into her hands, leaving behind a toxic and abusive relationship with a man who taught her she’d never be worthy of love. However, it became hard to ignore his words when she met her seven soulmates who rejected her without even giving her a chance to prove herself. It took (Y/N) 3 years to realize that it wouldn’t be her end. She would live on to prove them all wrong; she would become what they all thought she wasn’t: someone worthy of love. And as she stands proudly on the stage, under the  burning spotlights and the applause and  the cries of the delirious crowd, she feels alive. Alive, just like the bond she believed to be broken.

Pairings: Y/N x OT7

GENRE: Soulmate AU!, Idol Y/NAU!, semi social-media AU!, ANGST (mainly), fluff, romance, maybe smut in the series.

Ask or comment to be tagged!

1.5k

Warnings:  The series is going to be heavy with a lot of personal experiences  mixed into the fiction, so this is going to be kind of therapeutic for me. Please, consider not reading the series if you are not comfortable with: abandonment issues, anxiety, panic attacks, depression, self-harm (not descriptive and only part of MC’s past), suicide thoughts (in the past), toxic behavior, toxic and abusive relationship (in the past), depreciating self-talk and low self-esteem, a lot of curse, physical and mental pain, near death experience situation (in the past), and maybe smut scenes (happy ending though, but it will probably be quite the ride).

NOTE: So hello everyone, welcome to Time Heals (sometimes). Thank you so, so much for the warm welcoming, it has been my first time getting so many asks, I was honestly overjoyed. I still don’t really know what to call this part; is it a teaser? A note? A full chapter? I believe we’ll get some snapshot of memories like this one throughout the series because there is going to be a lot to unpack on both sides. I think it will be a chapter nevertheless because I have to establish some kind of order as to which parts should be read first, and I think this one is extremely important.

Thank you for reading,

-Dolly

Profiles #2 - here - part 2

Her scream pierced through the air while cries broke in the frenzied arena while a single blond-haired man froze, emptily staring at the stage. It felt like his senses heightened; his skin was shuddering, his eyes were frantically searching for one specific figure while his voice was lost in his throat. The screams resonating in the stadium would have been too loud for his voice to be heard anyway. 

Jimin knew he shouldn’t be there. 

Namjoon had told them more than once that none of them should try to go to one of (Y/N)’s events. It could be dangerous and they could be overwhelmed; anything could happen to them and they would still remain a nobody who fainted in the howling crowd. Would they want to take this risk? No.

So, Jimin would have had to admit that going to her very first concert in Seoul since the pandemic sounded like a very, very, very bad idea. And to be honest, it still didn’t seem to be a bright idea now that he was actually there. 

But he still went because he needed to see her for himself; to see how she was. He had so many things he dreamed about asking her. Are you okay? Are you sleeping well? Did you eat before coming to the arena? Are you nervous? Do you... remember me? 

Maybe he was torturing himself. He kept on watching her lives, following her on all social media, always made sure to leave a sweet comment, and never miss any of her new updates... Maybe he even had a folder of pictures of her on his phone but he’d never admit it to any of his mates. Taehyung would probably take his phone away from him and delete everything and Jimin couldn’t let that happen.

He felt like it was cheating. Don’t take him wrong though. When he thought that, he was not really thinking about the boys. They did collectively agree not to follow her activities as an artist but it was getting harder and harder with how popular she got anyway. Moon was everywhere. In commercials, on the radio, her songs were on the TV… Even if she was known for refusing most of the promotional contracts that were offered to her, her image was still constantly in the media despite her avoidance of it. Ironic, but the media were trying their best to find anything about her, be it positive or negative. One day she was seen on her bike, the next, she was in a coffee shop, and it kept on going on, overstepping on her privacy as if it was just a meaningless word. 

The lockdown had admittedly played a major part in Jimin’s obsession. Being in their apartment meant quickly running out of activities, and his job as a dance teacher was not really filling his free time (a lot of his classes were also canceled). It was also during that time that (Y/N) truly blew up as an independent artist. Advertisement on YouTube started being around her channel and her music, the recommendations he kept on seeing were about also her… Jimin’s resolve honestly broke easily. It was hard not to be curious about his lost soulmate even though he didn’t feel like he had the right to be hurting. 

Anyway, to come back to his main point, if Jimin felt like he was cheating; it was mostly for her. After all, (Y/N) had no means of letting the curiosity get the best of her, to know what they were doing; to simply see or contact them. He had, at first, not really thought about that. Watching her content seemed a very innocent thing to do in his opinion; billions of people were watching her content, why should he prevent himself from doing so? Yet, Jimin could still remember one of her live she did soon after that interview she had given on this damned radio show where she had revealed who her title track ‘TIME’ was about… She had gone live the next day-Jimin had jumped on his phone because of the notification-and one fan had asked her what would she do if she knew that her ‘ex-soulmates’ (and those words left a very sour taste in Jimin’s mind) were watching her. The question had silenced a previously restless Jimin, replacing his initial excitation with dread while a lump formed itself in his throat. He had not even noticed it; he was so focused on her live and her upcoming answer that Jimin had completely missed the sound of a glass breaking in the apartment. Jimin had been home alone, so even if had indeed heard it, he probably wouldn’t have bothered to check what had happened, thinking that the wind knocked it over or something. Jimin had been so absorbed by what he had been watching that he even got surprised a few hours later when Seokjin came home and yelled at him for breaking something when he had been clearly innocent, engrossed in (Y/N)’s live (not that he could tell his soulmates about that part, but yeah). (Y/N)’s live would always be more important than some random glass breaking again in their apartment. Every object was doomed with Namjoon living here anyway.

On her side of the screen though, (Y/N) had seemed taken aback as she had read the question and had gritted her teeth gently. She had seemed to be pondering about her answer even though a lot of people in her chat were telling her to forget about the question if it made her uncomfortable (a lot were even scolding the person who asked). Yet, sighing softly, she had looked up at the screen: 

“I’d appreciate it if you could refrain from asking questions on this topic. It’s not taboo but I’d rather not remember everything that comes with it. However, to answer this-hopefully-last question about it, I’d ask them to turn off my stream and to stop watching any of my content. It would only be fair after all. I’ve been denied access to their lives six years ago, why would they get a free pass into mine now?” She had not smiled nor had she seemed hurt by her own comment, yet Jimin’s heart had shattered in pieces, unable to press the cancel button. 

Her voice had slowly faded into background noise while her words had been stuck in his head. 

I’d ask them to turn off my stream and to stop watching any of my content. 

How could Jimin ever do that? He realized that he truly should. Namjoon would even agree with you, as ironic as it sounded for Jimin. Namjoon had been one of the most adamant ones about rejecting your bond, after all. Jimin was shaking with bitterness while ‘Moon’ continued her stream peacefully with music. Jimin could only try to gulp his anger down as he remembered her crumbling features on that fateful day. 

“You’re not our soulmates. This name on our arms means nothing to us. You are nothing to us if not a hindrance. Leave us alone.” 

If Jimin could go back in time, he’d prevent Taehyung from spatting those words at her. Yet, he couldn’t do anything. Playing the scene over and over in his mind wouldn’t change anything. It wouldn’t change that she probably hated them. It wouldn’t change the song she made about them. 

And worst of all, it wouldn’t change the fact that Jimin had let himself believe that their choice had been for the best, trying to console and reassure himself, even if he had already known that it was wrong. Tears were pooling up in his eyes even if none escaped as he finally caught a glimpse of her on the stage. Suddenly brought back to reality after his subconscious memory trip, Jimin finally connected back to the world, looking around while he was still frozen on his spot. People were still screaming around him and he wondered if he looked like an intruder. Because, after all, wasn’t that what he exactly was? She said it herself that she didn’t wish for them to watch her; so what was he doing here? 

Jimin couldn’t help but stare; she looked ethereal, dressed like a queen in the middle of a sold-out arena. People were screaming her name as she yelled her infamous ‘hi people’. It was an opening sentence that Jimin heard way too many times in her vlogs and suddenly hearing it in real life seemed surreal. 

Jimin could only watch in awe, entranced with her everything. 

Screw the boys and what they would think once he’d be back from her concert. 

He had been the one to find her six years ago anyway. He had been the one to bring her to their home six years ago, hoping for the boys to change their mind once they’d meet her.

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Uploaded : 09/04/2021

Taglist: @sweetmoonlight9, @mickmoon, @dreamer95, @loveyoongles, @spicetouched , @jikooksgirl19, @summerevelyn , @springjade , @clevercoley, @prooteus, @sehun096rainbow, @ainsle-e, @ifyouareme, @sunshinee0-0, @fangirl125reader, @sea-nevermind-enthusiast, @atlantis-atlas, @thequeen-kat, @naajix, @skyys-universe , @sichajeon , @yukiehyukie, @amxranthinesworld , @bunzom, @potate-oh, @mawwnsterr​, @ celaenaelentiyavox, @dvoz-writes​ , @honeybaby-94​ ,

[yasminbenoit]

“A Romantic Partner Won’t Complete Me, Because I Was Born Complete”: How Identifying As Asexual & Aromantic Brought Me True Freedom & Happiness | Yasmin Benoit for British Vogue

There is a phase in our lives where everyone seems asexual and almost everyone seems aromantic. It wasn't until puberty kicked in that platonic relationships seemed to take a backseat. My peers stopped wanting to play together and started wanting to 'date' each other. That was when I started to realise that there was something different about me. I didn’t seem to be experiencing the same urges as those I was around. I chose to go to an all girls school in the hopes that – in the absence of boys – everyone would stop caring about sex and dating. It actually had the opposite effect. There was a sense of deprivation in the air and the heightened desire to project their sexuality onto anything and everything.  

Therefore, my lack of interest became even more obvious, and it became a not-so-fun game to work out the source of what should be troubling me, but hadn’t been until that point. Having a sexual orientation isn’t just natural, it’s essential. It’s part of being a fully-functional human being. And to be romantically love and be loved by another is the ultimate goal. It’s part of being normal, which made me both abnormal and puzzling. When your asexual, people think there’s something wrong with your body. When you’re aromantic, they think there’s something wrong with your soul. Even for a teenage girl who internalised all of Disney Channel’s “be yourself” messages, it’s never nice to have people publicly debate your supposed physical and psychological flaws.  

My nickname in school was “hollow and emotionless.” I was a joker with a decent amount of friends, but I was lacking something crucial, the kind of love that really mattered and the kind of lust that made life exciting...so I was practically Lord Voldemort with braids. I sat through the regular DIY sexuality tests, having my peers show me graphic sexual imagery, have very sexual conversations in my presence, and ask me inappropriately intimate questions to gauge how far gone I truly was. These tests lead to the development of theories, most centred around me having some kind of mental problem. After a while, you start to wonder if everyone knows something you don’t.

When they said that I must have been molested as a child and “broken” by the trauma, I wondered if I had somehow forgotten about sexual abuse that actually hadn’t happened. I looked at some of my own relatives with suspicion, the same people who would later ask me if I didn’t experience sexual attraction because I was a pedophile. It was suggested that I was “suffering” from my “issues” because I was socially anxious and insecure. The suggestion that my ‘issue’ was pathological stayed with me for a long time, but not as much as the widely accepted theory that I was mentally slow. Unfortunately, that one stuck. I was referred to as “stupid” and I started to believe that was the case. It would impact my experience in education for the next eight years, long after I realised that there was a word for what I was.

Asexual.

I first heard the word during one of the near-daily sexuality tests that I was subjected to. I was asked if I was gay, to which I said that I wasn’t interested in anybody like that – men or women. At fifteen, I was asked, “Maybe you’re asexual or something?” but it wasn’t quite a lightbulb moment. How could it be when I had never heard the word outside of biology class? After an evening of Google searching, I realised that there were many people with my exact same experience, complete strangers whose stories sounded so strangely similar to mine. I also stumbled across the word ‘aromantic,’ but at the time, I didn’t understand the need for it. "Wouldn't all asexual people be aromantic? A romantic relationship without sex is just friendship with rules,” I thought.

Either way, my discoveries showed me that I wasn’t alone, but that only half helpful. I now had an identity that no one had heard of or understood. Most didn’t believe that being asexual or aromantic was a real thing, and I doubted it to. I had been taught to after years of armchair pathologisation. If asexuality was real, why did no one tell you that being sexually attracted to nobody was an option? What if it was just an internet identity made up to comfort people with all of the issues that had been attributed to me? I didn’t have to go far down the rabbit hole to realise that asexuality, like many non-heteronormative identities, had been medicalised. What I had experienced as just the tip of the iceberg. As someone who hadn’t been prescribed drugs I didn’t need or subjected to unnecessary hormone tests, I was one of the lucky ones.

My activism would be my gateway to the community. Despite being the ugly friend at school, I ended up becoming a model while in university. I decided to use the platform I had gained through my career to raise awareness for asexuality and aromanticism. It gave me the opportunity to encounter a range of asexual and aromantic offline, it was then that I learned the significance of having an aromantic identity. There are many asexual people who still feel romantic attraction, as well as aromantic people who still feel sexual attraction. They have their own range of experiences, their own culture, their own flag, and like the asexual community, I was relieved to see that they are just normal people. These intersecting communities are not stereotypes. They weren’t just thirteen year old, pink haired kids making up identities on Tumblr to feel special. They were parents, lawyers, academics, husbands, girlfriends, artists, black, white, young, old, with differing feelings towards the many complex elements of sexuality and intimacy. Most importantly, they were happy.

I am proud to be part of both, and I know that while being asexual and aromantic, I am a complete person and I can live a perfectly fulfilling life. Since meeting members of my communities, I’ve become more open about my identities in real life, and a reaction I’m often met with is sympathy. “You must feel like you’re missing out,” “I can’t imagine being like that,” “It must be hard for your family,” “Do you worry no one will want you?” “How do you handle being so lonely?” “You’re so brave and strong,” “What will you do with your life now?” Even in 2021, a woman who isn’t romantically loved or sexually desired by their “special someone” is perceived as being afflicted with some kind of life-limiting condition.  

Asexuality doesn't make undesirable or unable to desire others. It is a unique experience of sexuality, not a deprivation from it. Even if it was, there is so much more to life than what turns us on and what we do about it. Romantic love is just one form of love, neither superior nor inferior to any other. Being aromantic doesn't mean that you can't love or be loved, it does not mean you are void of other emotions or capabilities. I am not lonely with my friends, family, co-workers and supporters. I feel confident not when someone wants to date me but when I meet my goals and form worthwhile connections with others. My success isn't determined by whether someone will want to marry me someday. What we want out of life is our decision alone, our sources of happiness should not be defined by our ever-changing, culturally relative social standards. The love of a romantic partner won't complete me because I was born complete. Feeling sexual attraction to others won't liberate me because my liberation is not dependent on other people.

Valentine's Day is on the horizon. It's an occasion that amps up the focus on (and the pressure to achieve) a very specific type of love and sexual expression, one that is actually alienating for people inside and outside of the asexual community. During a pandemic where many relationships have been strained, tested, formed or distanced, it's important to keep the diversity of romantic and sexual feelings in mind. Many expect me to feel annoyed or lonely during this time of year, but I actually feel empowered and excited by the way sex, romance and love are discussed more deeply around this time. These conversations are constantly expanding to become more inclusive for everyone, and that's what we need to see all year round.

https://www.vogue.co.uk/arts-and-lifestyle/article/asexuality-and-aromanticism

[nightmare-deer]

“I have a wonderful career and have been very successful and have been incredibly fortunate speaking my mind and putting into my songs the way I see things. And here I am, in so many ways, having been rewarded for speaking my mind.

“Sinéad was one of those artists who was so far beyond her time, so far ahead of her time. She is someone who had more courage, I think, in her heart and in her mind, and in her brilliant vision of her work and in the principles that she stuck by and the way she offered her truth-telling in a way that was true to her.

She had more courage than a lot of us will ever try to contend with – or ever have to muster. The way that she told her truth and the way that she spoke about it and lived her life and offered her vision and offered her mind, you know, cost her a great deal.

“I was thinking about this last night: I am standing on a road here that she paved. She paved it at great cost to herself.

“She has said in interviews that she felt unburdened by the truths that she told and the decisions that she made. So, I feel that I’m walking a road that she absolutely paved. She was a woman, which I think is significant also.”​

I love that Hozier brought up how they have been treated so differently for saying the same things. 

He also says some nice things about the LGBTQ community 

He believes Take Me To Church, his most famous composition, is more relevant now than when he wrote it over a decade ago.

“Ten years ago we weren’t looking at some of the agitation [in Ireland and Europe].”

Like the neo-fascist gangs attacking LGBTQ+ young people in Russia?

“Yeah. It was something that was happening specifically in Russia. One criticism I got of the music video of Take Me To Church was that, ‘This is not our society. This is Russia. This is over there. This will never happen over here.’ And 10 years later we’ve got right-wing gangs active and agitating, intimidating and using coercion in public places against queer identity and gay identity.

“We have in the EU LGBTQ+-free zones in Poland and Hungary. Zones in cities that are dedicated as gay-free zones. There are armed militias in North America – the United States of America – standing outside of public buildings. That’s what’s happening now. When that level of hatred is a huge part justified by an identity surrounding religion then certainly Take Me To Church is as applicable now.”

The scapegoating of the LGBTQ+ community is horrifying but, he says, “not surprising. It has always been the way of: ‘Let’s pick 1pc of the population and mount upon them all of the failures of our current system.’ It’s always been the case when usually the least powerful – whether it’s refugees or whatever, or the trans community.

“It’s grimly predictable in some ways. As systems are failing us, there are difficult conversations that need to be had about those systems,” he says, referring to “particular private interests.”

“I’m sure everybody in every generation thinks we live in remarkable times, and we face great challenges – but I think, really, the next 50 years are going to be really important.

“You see people threatening to burn down hotels or whatever,” he says, “or running into tented communities and intimidating people out of it. I mean, it’s serious.”

During his show in Malahide Castle last month in front of an audience of 25,000, he picked up a trans beanie that a fan threw up on the stage. “I mean, I wish I caught it cleanly,” he says, with a smile. “I dropped it out of my hand.

“It was really sweet, really lovely. I get a huge amount of support from the queer community and the trans community, in particular, and from young fans. It’s a support and an appreciation that I ask myself, ‘am I fully deserving of, for the small amounts of support I have shown over the years?’. It is so appreciated.”

The whole article is worth the read

More to look forward to: Domhnall’s appearing in Hozier’s De Selby Part 2 music video ❤️‍🔥

“At the show in Malahide Castle on July 1, Domhnall Gleeson walked past me backstage. Later, I found out the actor is on the video for new song De Selby Part 2. It was filmed in the Sally Gap in Wicklow.

“Domhnall is a wonderful man, incredibly funny, very, very, very charismatic. He oozes good humour,” says Hozier of his collaborator.”

[jin0]

JIN OMG CONGRATS ON 1K!!!! u are a fantastic writer and u deserve it!! i've been absolutely obsessed with ur acc recently. thank u sm for blessing us with ur writing 💕

if ur still doing the ❄ ask, i would love to throw myself into the mix for an andrew garfield character lol. you've prob been getting a lot of requests tho so if u can't get to it it's no biggie!!!!

i'm white with shortish auburn hair (it's like a pixie cut w bangs lol). i'm pretty short i think around like 5'3". i'm genderfluid (i go by he/she/they) and i really love to mix things up when it comes to style, keeping my fashion sense a lovely mix of masculine and feminine

i'm a huge artist!!!! specifically a musician. i love to sing and play the guitar. i also write a lot, whether it be lyrics or poetry or short stories. i'm pretty active in theatre and i love to act. i'm a huge reader, i have a terrible habit of getting caught up in fantasy worlds. i'm also obsessed with film and cinematography. i'm just absolutely head over heels in love with the arts lol

i'm a weird mix of extremely chaotic and loud and the dad friend lmao. i'm a very big hopeless romantic. i tend to romantize everything about people and life that i can and that's obviously not always a good thing lol

thank u so so much!!! i hope ur having a wonderful day and i'm sending u the best vibes!!! ❤

his little chaos bringer !

to you i give :

another chaos bringer : link !!

link liked to laugh. the thing is he liked to laugh at people. because in real life he didn't find much things funny.

but you ? oh you, you were hilarious.

you were what the dictionary meant whenever the word chaos was brought up on social medias or in life. you were the physical representation of what chaos was and all that wrapped in a flesh suit like you called them. yeah, you had a problem with the word body. you thought it was tacky and out of fashion. per your words, we'd been using it long enough, it was time for 'a new supreme to rise'.

you would just say the absolute weirdest shit ever and he'd be on the floor, trying to breath. the majority of these were funny because you were a hundred percent serious too, which did give him whiplash. because as unhinged and stupid as you could be, you were also the most caring and loving being out there. your friends called you the dad friend once and you'd started wearing weird baseball caps and calling them 'champs'.

you could try and act like you didn't take it seriously but that simple way of seeing you had turned you into pure mush. you enjoyed being reliable and helping others fulfill whatever your friends needed. you truly were a dad, and the best one. you took your role seriously and it was both hilarious and adorable.

maybe the theater kid in you just saw this as another role. that was what drew him to you. the way you'd just be a dad to your friends, because it was fun and because that was who you were. a caring, slightly mentally unstable and unhinged dad stuck in a younger body. the thought did make him laugh because you'd mentioned before that you were pretty sure to be some supernatural entity body jumping from time to time because it was fun and because you'd trick people into thinking you were a certain age when in truth you were very old. ancient even.

the things you'd say made absolutely no sense and that's why he loves you. because he was the dumb idiot in love who just enjoyed to get in on your secret theories. being your boyfriend just felt like getting premier ticket to some grand wizard show where you never knew what you'd get served but it would be great either away.

and sometimes, the grand wizard show was especially unique because he'd get it like he was right now. with you straddling his lap, in your underwear, holding his face while he tried not to pass out from loss of oxygen. he'd been laughing for about thirty minutes non stop and couldn't feel his stomach anymore. he wasn't working his abs out ever again after this. he'd done enough for a lifetime.

"linkus ! do not pass out ! we are not done yet ! you haven't heard my theory on immortality just yet ! cause i'm about to blow your mind, and then you if you're game but we'll discuss that part later !" you exclaimed, holding him tightly as he tried to crawl away to calm himself down.

linkus, that was a reoccurring nickname when link didn't feel formal enough for what you'd been saying or wanted to say. here, linkus was a way for you, the scientist (or philosopher, he didn't fully grasp that part) to get him to focus on your grand discovery.

"you told me about your shit immortality theory, bun bun !"

"no i didn't !" you responded, frowning hard.

"yes you did ! you think you're immortal until proven mortal !" he laughed, loosing it once more.

you paused for a second, smiling.

"i did tell you. and you remembered ! we're improving here ! but stop saying it's shit ! it makes sense ! what exactly proves that we're not immortal ?!" you exclaimed, genuinely offended by his disregard of your genius. if only he knew how much of a great mind you had.

"death, bun bun ! death does that !" chuckled link, kissing your cheek softly and laughing when you rejected him.

"yeah but no ! the other ones that die, they aren't me ! i'm different ! i have the capacities to be an immortal !" you countered, waving your arms around to gesture to the outside. poor random people just weren't worthy of immortality under your words.

"so now it's a capacity ? last time you said it was natural selection." he challenged, raising an eyebrow and smiling.

"i lied last time." you simply shrugged.

he burst out laughing against. you were truly a gem, his bun bun.

when he was calm again, after a long while, his eyes couldn't leave your face. he couldn't stop staring at you. you breathed beauty and love. he wasn't the most romantic man ever, but the poems that would run through his mind just made him realize how much he loved you. because for you he could write like one of the french poets quoted in period pieces.

grabbing your ass, he pulled you to him, a soft and loving smile stretching his lips. your arms automatically placed themselves around his shoulders to bring him towards you too. what a sweet and sensual moment to share after discussing the most bonkers shit ever right ? yeah, that was true versatility right there.

letting his fingers run up your back and his thumbs press into your ribs, he kissed your lips tenderly, barely touching you. like he expected and loved, you whined for him, pushing your face towards his while whimpering for more kisses.

"how 'bout we pause on the immortality talk and i test out one of my theories huh ? wanna see how good i can make you feel with my mouth alone. what do you say pixie bun ?"

now that was a theory that you would agree to test out.